Sunday, June 24, 2012

Romanced

On my way to a wedding yesterday, I was scanning the radio and stopped on a station when I heard, "I just want to be romanced."

Being a girl and knowing that is more likely than not the cry of every girl's heart deep down, I just want to be romanced, it struck me so I stayed and listened.

They were talking about this girl who wrote in to this radio talk show and asked, "How do I get my boyfriend to be more romantic? His idea of romance is to pull up the covers and dutch oven me."

To my horror and heartbreak, I hear the radio people say, "Well, you need to show him what it's like to be romanced. You need to show him there's a payoff when you get in 'the mood.'"

That's not romance.

My heart broke because there is a hunger inside every person- they want to be romanced, they want to be loved, they want to be cherished. I know that's at least true for girls. This advice for the girl to go out and show the guy what it's like to do so is not romance.

Do you really want a guy who will only romance you because he knows there will be a payoff when you're "in the mood"?

That's not how God created it to be. And if you're settling for less than God created, you're settling for a cheap imitation of second class goods when the very best is offered to you, not on a gleaming silver platter, but on a bloody but beautiful cross.

God created us with those hungers and those thirsts and desires for Him and He romanced us when we didn't even want Him.

All this girl wants is for her boyfriend to want her, to romance her, to woo her, guess what? The greatest man who ever lived, who ever walked this earth, did that for her and she didn't want it.

Jesus romanced her with His steadfast love and His breathtakingly beautiful faithfulness to her when she didn't even want Him. He proposed to her on a cross with open arms, asking her to accept Him forever, to come into His love, and she's trying to find that love in a mere human whose love is not even worthy to be compared to the love Jesus has for us.

She's settling for a substitute that cannot even compare with the real thing. She's eating a bland potato with no butter or toppings when an endless steak and lobster buffet is offered her.

My prayer for all the girls is that they see that. That they see their cry for romance, their need, want and desire to be loved by a man is fulfilled in Jesus.

Look to the cross.

Monday, June 11, 2012

10 Gentle Reminders


While preparing the lesson for my True Beauty girls for this week, I came across the following on Pinterest, although I altered one. Enjoy the reminder. 

10 Gentle 

Reminders

Making others feel at ease is the essence of etiquette, 
yesterday and today

There are few words more elementary or welcomed than
please and thank you

Good moods are contagious
hopefully yours will be worth catching

Be aware and considerate of other peoples’ 
personal space; physical, visual and aural

Showing respect is a gift;
one that costs nothing and is endlessly appreciated

Think of your tone of voice as a telegraph:
it speaks volumes to your listener

A short fuse does nothing but burn,
should you find yourself with one, steer clear of others

Never underestimate the message sent by
your poise and posture

Clothes count. Appropriate attire is not only respectful,
but refreshing

Let common sense (and God’s Word) be your guide
and graciousness your goal

My Prayer


Faith, prayers, tears and groanings

My dad doesn't use an alarm clock. He just prays that God will wake him up when he should wake up everyday and that he'd get to work on time. And everyday he wakes up and gets to work on time.

It would make sense if my dad had an 
8-5 job his natural clock would be set and conditioned to wake up at the same time every day in order to get to the office on time, but that's not the case. 

My dad works at local hospitals and his patients arrive at different times every day so the times he would have to leave the house at different times, not to mention he works at different hospitals in the area so the travel time varies from day to day. There isn't a certain time he is conditioned to wake up, God wakes him up. That's the faith of my dad and God has proved Himself over and over through it. 

Then there's me, completely dependent on an alarm clock. However, here lately I've been praying that God would wake me up when He wants and that if it was Him, I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. This morning He honored that prayer.

My alarm was scheduled to scare the living daylights out of me at 5:19 and 5:24 a.m. (yep, not just one but two alarms), so I could hit snooze for about 40 minutes, make it to the shower around 6, spend time with God then make it to work at 8:30. But God had other plans. 

Hello 4:30 a.m. Hello wide-awakeness. Hello world. Hello heart-wrenching burden. 

The kind of burden squashing my heart is something I can't explain. I'm not going to lie, I tried to go back to sleep. That didn't work. I tried getting on Facebook. That didn't work. So I started praying. (What kind of last resort is that? Why it was not the first obvious choice, I don't know.) 

 After writing several pages of prayers asking God for deliverance for a certain one of my disciples, the tears were blurring my vision and I gave up writing and just started crying out to the Lord asking for help and His leadership, wisdom and sensitivity. 

The battle was intense. Our enemy is so strong. But praise God, our Lord is stronger. 

Before long I opened up His precious Word and went to Romans 8:26, but before I made it there I started reading verse 18. The truths of these verses were like aloe vera on a sunburn, so soothing.


"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. 29 For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified."  
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32  He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34  Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

    we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
-Romans 8:18-39

The amount of gratitude I have for the Word of God is inexpressible. And if His sweet Word--filled  with exceedingly great and precious promises--wasn't enough, it tells us the Spirit Himself is interceding for us. It says that twice then goes on to say Jesus Himself is sitting beside the Father in heaven praying for us, interceding on our behalf, begging our Dad next to Him to hear and answer us and so fulfilling His High Priestly duties. 

Although I was doing some tear-filled groaning with the Spirit this morning and it wasn't the most comfortable feeling, I pray it is the first of many mornings to wake up in prayer and feel the Lord fighting for me. 

He really is the best.

My encouragement for you is that you remember you are not in this battle alone. You have brothers and sisters that want to help you fight and you have a Comforter and Savior who is not only interceding for you, but One who has already clinched the battle. "It is finished."




Thursday, June 7, 2012

God's Wallet

The World's Largest Wallet, measuring 10-feet high and 21-feet wide, set a Guinness World Record in December  2010 in Harvard Square, Mass.


While praying for God's provision for a need in our church last night, Dave Weaver said,
"God, You have a bigger wallet than any of us."

That one line in his passionate and heart-filled prayer has been swimming around in my brain ever since and is changing the way I view God.

It's not like the fact of God's big wallet is new, no, I've heard my whole life, "God owns the cattle on a thousand hills," and the like. But this was different. It placed in my head an entirely different mental picture to ponder.

When Dave prayed that, it was as if I could see God up on His throne reaching in His back pocket and pulling out this ginormous, fat wallet and then distributing it to us, His kids, almost like an allowance.

Except, an allowance (in today's society) is supposed to be based on doing your chores. When the dishes are done, the room is sparkling and trash is no longer decomposing and contaminating the trashcan, then the kids are given their allowance (at least that's how it was for me, although my parent's called it "commission").

But God (the two best words in the entire world) doesn't base His provision off our performance. God gives to us because His Son has already given the highest performance by sacrificing Himself on the cross and swallowing our curse. He provides for us out of His grace, not because we did our chores this week.

Sometimes God doesn't provide like we want Him to or think He should, but the Bible promises that He will provide everything we need (Philippians 4:19). If we don't have it today, we don't need it today. 

And now I have a different picture of God providing for us in my head. Here we are, His grubby little kids approaching His throne asking for a house or roof, or car or paycheck, and God reaches around and finds the pocket in His big flowing white robe, pulls out His God-sized wallet and doles out the provision as He sees fit.
"If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" -Matthew 7:11
God is our Father and He loves us more than our earthly fathers ever could. I encourage you to read Matthew 6:25-34 and seek Him not only as Father, but first among anything or anyone else.



Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Why praise the Lord?

Why praise the Lord? 

Not because your situations or circumstances are going well, but because He deserves it no matter what is going on in our lives.

Join me in praising Him because of Him, not because of us. 


 

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